Sunday, 09:59 pm, 29 February 2004

Every month I say to myself, I will get the Noble Ape Mailout done by the middle of the month. If it is done in the middle of the month I don't end up with a frantic end of the month. This almost defeats the purpose of the Mailout in documentation terms though. The Mailout in fact covers a month's development and this typically changes quite a bit through the month. I have thought about many ways of easing the Mailout burden. But it always comes back to the last few days of the month rush.

Good night.
Wednesday, 10:56 pm, 25 February 2004

My wife called for me to go and get petrol with her, so I finished the last log entry a little early. When I got back, I found my comment on eBay had been put on BBC News' website. I am Tom, Wilmslow, UK;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3518895.stm

You may wonder what I looked like in the Shed. This image kills two birds because it also shows my original 1400c laptop. The one I have now is identical (bar it is 166Mhz not 133).

The Grey Album? So last week! Good night.
Wednesday, 08:03 pm, 25 February 2004

Barbalet Flip Flops on da Hip Hop

Scratch the recent narrative on the Grey Album vs WeFunk. Now the Grey Album has been hijacked by everyone with an axe to grind and the opposition has continued to lampoon itself, it has all become too mainstream.

I listened to some classic WeFunk Radio today and it moved me back to what hip hop is all about. The missing ingredient in the Grey Album is the lyrics. I have never been a JayZ fan, but his lyrics in the Black Album are really weak. Now what I want to see is the Beatles lyrics to JayZ beats. It's a Hard Knock Life for Elinor Rigby.

I think there is a calm medium. Perhaps it is non-violating satire?

WeFunk Apology

Following my comments about WeFunk, I listened to Shows 301, 305 and 310. Two out of three mention me by name too. It could have been a subconscious need to hear my name mentioned in order to rekindle my loyalty. But they are all slamming shows. And there are a number of good WeFunk shows. The past two are just a dull thud, in a normally electric set from Static and Groove. I wonder if the monthly setting for Rockdeep means their skills are not as sharply honed. In any case, I sent Groove and email today saying I had put the Grey Album down in favour of some WeFunk classics.

Noble Ape Stalls due to Ad Bound Software?

The Noble Ape website is my current focus. Although I forgot to get some additional information from work today - namely the latest download of Eudora Ad-Bound, StuffIt Standard (Registration Bound) and the dreaded IE for the laptop. My use of IE has come back full circle recently. Particularly for looking at the logs. The renderer in Mac IE is different to the Windows version - it appears. The Mac version uses some of the Quickdraw functionality and this produces a different layout.

I mainly use Mozilla at work, because my computer is powerful enough. At home, I switch between Netscape and IE. Mainly IE now for log uniformity and checking style issues. Sad really. I went for a period where I used Mozilla on my home machine. But it drives like a tank. On my wife's PC, IE only. What more could you expect.

So what do I want to do with the Noble Ape website. Well, I want to start archiving software through the site and have a proper archive interface all through HTML. This is in complete reaction to the failings of SourceForge. But it is something I have been meaning to do for years. The dependency on SourceForge eliminated the need for this development. But now it is needed. A good way to dynamically upload source and track changes, log changes etc.
Tuesday, 07:26 pm, 24 February 2004

An Overview

Things seem to be re-energised in recent days. The IGDA IPR Committee is kicking back into gear, thanks in part to me sending the entire committee an email. The Noble Warfare code is coming together thanks to the new old laptop. The only couple of down notes have been the recent two Wefunk shows that seem to be fractured and my body is slowly giving up the ghost. Oh, we haven't had a rubbish collection in three weeks.

On my body...

I damaged my foot last week walking in to work and it hasn't been the same since. I have stupidly put off going to the doctor in favour of trying to correct the problem through rest and elevation. This has worked in part. But when ever it comes close to getting better, I have gone out for a walk or something has come up and the foot has begun hurting again.

In addition to the foot, I had three moles removed from my face yesterday. Two of my symmetric chin moles and one on the neck. I have always had moles on my face, but my wife - who has to look at my mug daily - decided it was time for the bulk of them to be removed. I had my first one removed about three months ago. The removal isn't painful but it leaves a large scab per removal which needs to heal naturally. The first one was much more troublesome than the three currently healing.

WeFunk - Suffering a Cold?

The WeFunk shows prove an interesting footnote. I have been listening to the Grey Album rather heavily recently and I found it more progressive than WeFunk. In fact, I haven't cycled into a high intensity WeFunk show, but the recent two episodes have been rather tired.

Static in particular has been playing some of his older, more disjointed favourites and there isn't a good progression between Static and Groove. Shows where they are really clicking work well. But recently, perhaps they are under the weather, it just seems a little cliched. I guess I am missing some injection of new material. There haven't been freestylers on recently either.

Three Computers?

I am now living with three main computers which is interesting. My wife's PC seems to be the default internet cruising machine. It is scary actually, I have spoken with other Mac heads who say XP Home Edition is more Mac than OS X. This is really true. I find XP Home is the perfect level for my wife and ideal for cruising the web. I really like the web browser as an FTP client. I think that is a no brainer but stunning that Microsoft came up with it first. In the past, Microsoft has been the evil empire. But they really did something right with XP Home. Just the right level for the general home user.

On the other end my Mac 133Mhz 604 is still used for my primary email collection (on occasion). But the winner for my time has been the laptop. What a great machine it is! In terms of development time and general text editing it is a luxury to sit on the bedroom floor and write the weblog as I am doing currently. Something is definitely right with this scenario. And my productivity - particular with regards to the luxury of trying new coding in bed - has increased phenomenally. It is a different working mind. Good night!
Sunday, 01:58 pm, 22 February 2004

I saw the layout for the IEEE article this morning. It was stunning. The realisation that the article - just text and a series of graphics - had been transformed into an actual IEEE article took a good five minutes to sink in. Suddenly all my concerns about proper nouns and syntax were lost in the actual article. It was a think of aesthetic value. With considerable information to boot. I can't complain. It is a privilege to write for IEEE.

I spent the early part of the morning working through the Noble Ape/Warfare related Ocelot changes. I have been playing with integrating more into the Ocelot graphics. A screenshot would probably be worth a thousand words here.

I used the map feed for the graphics to map onto Ocelot and then I experimented with tree effects. Some work to go. But getting there. The idea works at least and I think it will work well with Noble Warfare. Fighting through trees will add a new dimension.

The cheese of the current trees and map, comes from the resolution of the grid. I worked out the ape splodges are roughly 7 x 7 pixels on the map with overlap. Basically if any edge touches the cross pixel on the map, it becomes the cross pixel on the screen. It is a nice effect but increases the contact area considerably.

Other news? Some email from Chris Blair last night. It turns out he isn't a fulltime figure painter. I am stunned actually. I think the Fred Reed formula should work for all figure painters. In the US, Chris could make a good income. In the UK, he needs a regular job to tide him over. The Fred Reed formula seems to come with regulars and army painting. I am impressed with his word of mouth philosophy has worked. He has a finite amount of time, and those who get his work are folks who go the extra distance of tracking him down. I have to respect that. For me, I would put up web pages. List auctions. I would be pushing the market. But Fred has a laid back attitude. He doesn't need publicity. He has a backlog.

Good afternoon.

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